Why designers can't understand their users, book

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From the beginnings of ergonomics, in the early years of the Twentieth Century, to this book in the early years of the Twenty First Century.
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The Problem: how to apply fundamental experimental psychological knowledge

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How is it possible that we have programmable, interactive, multi-media, world wide communicating computers, that are not capable of communicating with their master.

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What Solution will make computers user-friendly? The basis is the common Man Computer separation.

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What Solution will make computers user-friendly? The basis is the common Man Computer separation.

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Four properties are used to find an experimental answer on that question (visual size, visual distance, cognitive quantity and cognitive structure). The tasks investigated are simple every day tasks like finding a station on a ticket vending machine, noticing that a vending machine is out of order and finding a train in a list of trains on a dynamic trains indicator. The first experiment, reported in chapter 8, is an easy one. The element property: visual size that is used to improve the userfriendlyness of finding a station in an alphabetical list.

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Chapter 9 analyses a visual field property, ’visual distance’ used to improve userfriendliness of two tasks: ’Notice a vending machine is out of order” and "Notice instructions on ’how to insert a banknote’."

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The final experiment in chapter 11 focuses on using cognitive structure, again for the task of finding a departing train on a trains indicator.

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It is no wonder that applied cognitive psychology has lost all of its territory to technology and design. It is no wonder that many of its soldiers defect to technology, thinking they still are psychologists.

One can blame technology for the interface Problem as Norman (1990, 1998) does. One can blame management as Cooper does (1999).

So far the smoke screen of science has been effective in not blaming psychology for the interface Problem. When time has blown away the smoke screen our grandchildren might well blame today's psychology for designers not understanding their users.

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Design indicator experiment
2 Random list with destinations
3 Table of contents: Software psychology
4 Table of contents: Designing the user interface
5 Structure of: A web-based handbook
6 Table of contents: Encyclopaedia of Ergonomics and Human Factors

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